My Dad, Horace Harold Haston, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on 12/4/1925 to Margaret Smith Haston and Hearl Haston.   His father left when he was a baby and, as far as we know, never returned.    My grandmother, Margaret, eventually married again and left my Dad to be raised by his grandfather, Charlie Grover Smith.   Dad reminisced about playing around the grounds of Parthenon in Nashville when he was a child.  They lived on a farm, and Dad was taught at a young age about hard work.  His grandfather was strict, taught him an excellent work ethic, and loved him very much.  Dad mentioned many times that he didn’t know what would have happened to him had his grandfather not stepped up and raised him.   There was an elderly black couple that lived on the farm as well.  Dad said he would eat at home and then go to the couple’s house and eat again.  Growing boys are hard to fill up.   I don’t recall their names, but Dad was very fond of them, and they loved him too.
 

During the Great Depression, his grandfather lost their farm and small general store.  I actually have the ledger from the store, and you can see the numbers sadly going down daily.  People just didn’t have the money to purchase items or to pay if they had promised to pay later.  There’s even a notation in the ledger of my dad’s birth.  When the farm and business were lost, they moved to Chattanooga, in the Saint Elmo area, which was where Dad’s mother, stepfather, and half-brothers were living.  They all lived together, and Dad attended Central High School.  Uncle IH (Isham Harvey Haston) and Ruth Haston lived in Chattanooga and owned a motel and gas station (Glendale Tourist Court).  Dad said that when he was young, he would go work at their motel by painting, as a bell boy, or whatever was needed.